Thursday, March 15, 2018

Remember those old D&D advertisements? They attempted to put you right there in the action, as if you stepped inside one of the fantasy characters, exploring a dungeon or fighting a dragon. "You are the wizard!"

The times when it felt like myself but also my character in the environment described by the GM, that's the essence of roleplaying. That's when I really connected with the game and immersed myself in another world.

Everything else is just hanging out with friends, rolling dice, and seeing what happens next - not a terrible thing, but not what I like best about RPGs, not what makes them special. That uniqueness is best represented, in my view, by old school styles of play.

I'm trying to make more videos, as well as, blogging. Here's one I just made about this very subject...

Can you remember a time when it felt like you weren't sure where you ended and your character began? Tell me about your experiences!

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Some nice changes have been made to the PDF (both bloody parchment with evil red veins and the printer-friendly version), so wanted to blog about it!

A few of the previous illustrations weren't that well integrated into the layout, my fault on that. And a new image was added, plus text from Draconic Magazine here. So, the document is looking better than ever.

If you've already purchased it, the updated PDFs are waiting for you (email notification should have automatically been sent out when the files were updated). If you don't have it yet, I think it's well worth the price...

Monday, March 12, 2018

"What's the point of all the penis imagery/juvenile themes? Not a complaint. Just curious and interested in why you think your work needs that?"

Rather than reply to this comment with something short like "Because I can," which isn't very illuminating, I thought, why not do a blog post about it?

The simplest answer is that I like comedy, I like things that are funny, I like being funny. I think humor is one of the strongest qualities of both man and art - it reveals, deflects, digs deep, allows us to remain on the surface, and keeps us from taking things too seriously.

The vast majority of RPG content is serious, almost nobody writes for laughs. Maybe that's because if what they write is taken seriously that means they'll be taken seriously? I don't know. But the exclusivity of humor in RPGs is one of the things that attracts me to it. If most people are doing one thing, I like to go the other way. That's just who I am.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, RPGs are a great medium for shared storytelling and cooperative imagination. But they also have a stumbling block or two. Without audio and visuals (besides the GM's voice and a few illustrations and possibly miniatures with terrain), RPGs lack the visceral punch of movies, TV, comic books, music, and novels (which is a different story entirely - campaigns are not novels, though we should take cues from them).

In fact, music is a good analogy - before the music video, you had the album cover art and maybe a few pictures of the musicians on the back. Otherwise, you had to go see the concert and then it was just a bunch of people on a stage playing their instruments. Even after MTV's heyday, a lot of today's music is consumed visually.

So, what's my point? That RPGs need a helping hand. More than passing around a picture of a dragon or ginger-bearded tavern keeper, our gaming sessions are better if they incorporate strong imagery based on classic tropes, material the players have experienced in the movies, TV, and novels. I ask you, how many characters would have ever used a whip if not for Indiana Jones?

The familiarity of humor is also an "in." It's an imagination boost! Laughter is universal, even though not everybody thinks the same things are funny. My comedy can be weird and dark; it's occasionally juvenile and often rooted in sexual themes. Plus, there's the whole sleazy angle which I love for entirely different reasons and is a blog post for another time...

In conclusion, my answer to why I think my work needs such things is this - comedy is gold!

VS

p.s. There are still quite a few Kort'thalis Publishing books that aren't full of penile juvenilia. Such as... Dead God Excavation, Blood Dark Thirst, The S'rulyan Vault I and II, and anything with "Like A Fucking Boss" in the title should have a minimum of frothing vaginal tentacles (uncircumcised). That's the Venger Satanis guarantee!

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Three players, two new PCs, and one returning - Ginger Roots, a female navigation expert and explorer who's contemplative, healthy, wealthy, and wise - along with being good with lasers and hand-to-hand combat.

The other PCs were a robot chef named RB with flamethrower, chopping knives, and hover-board feet who also kept a little creature in his chest oven.

Hanzo was a space rat templar embodying the worst parts of organized religion - fanatical in the promotion of his own god for the dual purposes of increasing the power and spreading the influence of that god's religion.

Hanzo was created using the traditional character generation tables in the Alpha Blue rulebook, while RB was made using the new 7 word or phrase method over here.

Left high and dry on Alpha Blue by their former crew, they wandered the Mardi Gras type celebration happening in the entire entertainment section of the space station.

Ginger Roots and Hanzo got acquainted with RB as he was serving succulent and effervescent desserts upon a platter or h'orderves. If the player hadn't come up with his own, we could have used this random dessert table here.

Ginger and Hanzo were looking to join a new crew on a new ship, so they asked RB if he knew of any job openings. Turns out that RB's master was in the market for spacers.

They talked to Kystin pirate pimp extraordinaire and he agreed to take them on as probationary members of the crew if they delivered a message to his rival, Vom Fass.

So, the PCs continued to walk through the celebration - going to the restroom, watching some alien get blasted, someone bought them drinks with his gambling winnings, they bought some drugs from a shifty trench-coat wearing dude, and chatted with a bunch of prostitutes who took RB's credits so he could taste a very special kind of dessert in the backroom.

Before you know it, they were standing in front of Vom Fass who stood inside an environmental suit. Vom Fass insulted them and when the PCs talked back, he got ready to draw. RB preempted any dueling by letting loose his flame thrower. Hanzo kept shooting laser crossbow bolts into his groin while Ginger Roots blasted his arm off. Vom Fass got a couple good shots in before he died.

They hightailed it onto Kystin's ship and out of Alpha Blue before a small angry, laser-toting mob got to them. Off to the desert planet of P'oon to pick up an illegal shipment of... an undisclosed substance.

While relaxing on route to P'oon, Hanzo took a look at the meditation room on the ship, only to discover there was another crew member already using it. This fellow spacer was a pink gelatinous dude who worshiped an entirely different space god. This distressed Hanzo and led to a heretical religious debate of sacrilege and blasphemy. The jelly dude's form of worship was oozing green slime on women's breasts. As much as Hanzo wanted to denounce such alternative religious practices, he couldn't help but realize the sense of it, eventually joining in.

Kystin's ship bypassed a Federation battle cruiser thanks to Ginger's navigational skills. They landed in the desert, near the intended target - a starport.

A Zone trooper security patrol caught up to the PCs, demanding to see their papers. Instead, Kystin blasted them, but then got shot himself. Before dying, his last words to the PCs were don't forget to pick up the turquoise.

RB used his computer access to locate the ship full of turquoise. Dressed as Zone troopers, the PCs cut in line at the checkpoint. Hanzo decided to pop some drugs he had bought on Alpha Blue and started seeing colorful dots all over, plus he was talking to himself.

Luckily, he held it together until they could take possession of the turquoise. Another security officer came by to check on things, questioning the PCs. They made it through ok and flew the smaller ship full of turquoise into Kystin's ship.

Then, they went back to Alpha Blue to sell it.

It was a typical Alpha Blue sandbox adventure driven by the players and helped with some random tables. Besides coming up with a couple of NPCs beforehand, it was all improvised. I got to use my electric, color-changing candles and roll on some new tables, so that was also cool.

VS

p.s. I had planned on recording some of this session and uploading it to YouTube, but since it was Alpha Blue (the sleaziest RPG in the galaxy), the wife vetoed that pretty hard.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Since my self-publishing efforts will be sidelined for at least a year, starting July 1st, (due to time and financial concerns) I've been thinking about streaming my own weekly games this summer.

I wouldn't be able to put too much energy into this (outside of running the actual game); otherwise the wife isn't going to let me pursue this, either. However, I'm hoping with a minimum of additional fuss, I could provide an awesome stream of gaming for the viewing public.

Though, I would love to run my own games, especially Alpha Blue or Crimson Dragon Slayer, I've got to put financial needs above my own vanity. Therefore, I'd be running Dungeons & Dragons - however, it'll be old school, using a wide variety of home-brewed and OSR/O5R content, as well as, adhering to a plethora of vintage aesthetics, play styles, and GMing techniques.

Hopefully, this would do double or triple-duty - providing a fun, creative outlet for others to watch while teaching gamers how D&D 5e can be played in a more Basic D&D fashion. Plus, a little extra financial security wouldn't hurt.

Let me know what you think! If I can convince my wife (who has our family's best interests at heart) that streaming is where it's at, there might be a new KS next month...

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Yep, there it is! Now, Alpha Blue is just like Star Wars - probably the single biggest influence on Alpha Blue, and a personal favorite of mine.

I appreciate all your support, everyone. Thanks for running, playing, buying, mentioning, reviewing, crowd-sourcing content for, blogging about, and jerking off to the sleaziest sci-fi RPG in the universe!Battle Star: Trek Wars is coming out in June, and I can't wait to whip it out and show it to you. ;)

Preview some of the fantastic random tables of futuristic fornication on Draconic Magazine.

Monday, March 5, 2018

Well, I did it again. Look, mom, only 1 take! I did a practice run first, though. The wife is also trying to put the kebosh on my videos, so had to do this in the precious moments of free time between work and home.

In case you missed it, here is the pilot. Anyone whose triggers are tentacle rape and awful homemade "animation"... this is not for you!

Thanks for watching, hope you enjoyed it (at least a little bit) and will continue to check out Obsidian Sphere Gaming Group as the show (d)evolves.VS

p.s. Yeah, I noticed that the title written on the card says "Black Sphere Gaming Group" and I also read it that way. Just pretend that shit was on purpose!

Friday, March 2, 2018

Wasn't sure how to word the title. "Procedural" can describe a host of play styles, so perhaps "modern procedure" is what I'm railing against?

Basically, I enjoy roleplaying through a situation or interacting with the game world as if I were my character and actually present in that fantasy realm or starship or loathsome cult's temple.

I know that skill checks and insight rolls are popular nowadays, but there's something awesome about living through your character, carefully skulking down the dark hallway and feeling around with your ten-foot pole.

Reducing a conversation, room search, or investigation of an unknown substance to a die roll just seems to trivialize the importance of such things. How can one immerse themselves in a particular genre if everything boils down to rolled dice and modifiers? Even attacking monsters should occasionally have some narrative component, right?

I'd like to hear about your own experiences with this. Did something during a game either bother or excite you? Did you experience one end of the spectrum and it caused a reaction? Comment with a story!